A Decentralized Context Broker Using Byzantine Fault Tolerant Consensus

A context broker is a reliable message-relaying service used to connect devices by integrating all device protocols and communication methods, and reliably transporting messages while isolating data from other application service layers and networking complexities. A highly scalable decentralized context broker stack is composed of three layers—starting with a peer-to-peer network connecting a byzantine fault-tolerant (i.e., blockchain-based) consensus protocol—and it manages the communication using a web-socket streaming protocol as interface to other applications. This paper presents such a concept for a decentralized context broker stack for intercommunication between heterogeneous materials handling systems, and deploys the stack as proof-of-concept using ROS-based robots in a logistics scenario

Synchronisation of material flows in mass-customised production systems: a literature-based classification framework and industrial application

The mass customisation strategy is needed by manufacturing companies to face the increasing variety and unpredictability of products required by customers. However, mass customisation may increase the complexity of managing manufacturing and production logistics activities, for example due to reduced product batch sizes. The synchronisation of material flows within the factory is emerging as a way to address this complexity, as it enables an effective and efficient implementation of mass customisation. Indeed, the fourth Industrial Revolution introduces new digital levers, which can be combined with traditional managerial levers to achieve the synchronisation of material flows within the factory. This study contributes to the rising stream of research on this topic. A systematic literature review was conducted, leading to the development of a classification framework of the levers supporting the synchronisation of material flows. The identified managerial levers are: storage of materials, feeding policy, and scheduling. The digital levers are: materials tracking, process tracking, data analytics, and assistance systems. The developed framework was operationalised in four industrial cases and applied as a tool to map their levers related to the synchronisation of material flows

Concept of a multi-agent based decentralized production system for the automotive industry

To face the challenges of today’s market requirements, a huge effort is made to plan continuous flow manufacturing systems used today. Simultaneously disturbances during the production have decisive negative effects on the effectiveness. To mitigate this problem, current research programs try to use flexible production systems with a high degree of self-organization. In this paper a novel concept for a flexible decentralized production system is described which combines the planning method of a precedence graph and a multi-agent-system that forms a modular control system. Furthermore first results are presented that have been achieved by a pilot demonstrator and simulation experiments